hero
by Hecate's Wrath
Summary: And all she can think is if she had to do it over, she wouldn't choose this, wouldn't choose any of it.


Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

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She really, really wants to be heroic. She really wants to be like Neville and Harry and Ron and Hermione, and she wants to want this. She does. But there's something about the smelly room with the hammocks and the endless nights she spends not-sleeping, and the days and days and days of fruitless fighting—there's something about all of that that just isn't as glamorous as she thought it was going to be.

She can admit it—she joined up with the cause in the first place because she wanted a cause to pin her name to—she wanted something to be remembered for. She's an only child, her parents are pureblood, and are keeping their heads down. They don't fight, and they don't join the cause; they are the passerby. She has no causes all her own, so she pins herself to this one.

And the first night, it was fun and daring and she felt _alive_, but now, now it's just an endless, miserable waiting game and she is _tired. _

It's not even enough, now, when Neville stands up and lights them on fire, it's not enough to jar this aching exhaustion from her bones. She never wanted to be ordinary—now she would kill for the chance.

She can't go back. She does support the cause, it's not that she thinks that Voldemort has anywhere near the right idea, it's just—well, she's never really been affected by it, has she? A Ravenclaw, a Pureblood, an only child. She isn't anything remarkable, and she could blend so easily into either group. She picked this one because it seemed like the most heroic, and she has always had her vanity.

(She wants, so desperately, to be the good guys. She wants to be remembered for the good things, for being a hero. She wants to see her name next to Harry Potter's.)

She thought it would be fun, to taunt the Carrows, but really it's just the most terrifying thing she's ever done, ever. It's not fun, it's not thrilling, it's _scary_, and not in a good way, not even close to a good way. When they said "you'll be fighting for your life" she didn't think they actually _meant it_. Alecto Carrow levels her wand at her and they're alone, just her and Alecto, and she looks up into Alecto's eyes and _please_.

She's ashamed, so ashamed, that she begged for her life. Begged Alecto not to _Crucio_ her into oblivion, and she's almost relieved it doesn't work. (Because what kind of hero is she, if she begs for her life?) Lying on the floor in the Room of Requirement as she feels every inch of the _Cruciatus _curse sink into her bones, she wishes she were a little less vain.

She's never been an underdog, and the kind of life that so suits those accustomed to fighting does not fit her. She is no warrior, no hero. She's a passerby, a random citizen, someone who might have a daydream or two about saving the world, but at the end of the day, is quite satisfied with ordinary.

She never even sees it coming. She doesn't expect them to target her. She stayed behind to fight, but she never actually thought they'd _fight her_. Sure, they'd fight Harry and Ron and Hermione and Neville, sure, but not _her_. She's just along for the ride, she's no threat. So when Fenrir Greyback bares his ugly stinking teeth at her, it takes it a moment to sink in, that she is about to become dead, or worse.

It takes just a minute, and then she regrets it all. If she had her choice, and could do it all over again, she'd never choose _this._

His teeth sink into her shoulder like a hot knife through butter. The pain is so intense it doesn't feel real, not at first. But then he _rips_ at the flesh and she feels it, she feels it a million times over, the fire in her shoulder and down her arm and up her neck and _ohgodohgodohgod_ not _this_.

His teeth tear rents down her arms, up her legs, across her face and just as she begs for death, for anything but this, he stops and bares his teeth at her, looking down at her. She meets his eyes, feels her blood flow out of her, onto the concrete of the entrance hall. He looks at her for what feels like ages, but lasts only a second, maybe two, before he leans down and his teeth close around her neck. She has one last fleeting moment before the light leaves her eyes, and all she can think is if she had to do it over, she wouldn't choose this, wouldn't choose any of it. She takes back everything she thought she wanted, and if wishes were enough to anchor her to the ground, she would have stayed, but the light leaves her eyes, and those gasping gurgling breaths finally cease.

Her name makes its way onto a memorial. Her parents are thanked for her service. Her name (with others) puts Greyback in Azkaban. She is immortalized at fifteen, mangled in the aftermath, the hero she never wanted to be.

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AN: I didn't mention her name intentionally. I tried to make it gender-neutral as well, but that didn't work as well as I'd hoped. So she's a girl, but that's all you get!

Leave your thoughts on the way out!


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